Oppenheimer Family Archive
An interactive, source-referenced record of the Oppenheimer family of Gemmingen, Baden — eight generations spanning persecution, survival, and emigration. Built from primary sources held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the International Tracing Service, and material kept within the family.
across 16 generations
marriages, parentage, siblings
54 translated to English
USHMM Coll. 2004.485.1
1803 — present
across Europe and Israel
USHMM file 001/019/0003
A postcard from Theresienstadt
In June 1944, Margit Oppenheimer was twenty-two years old and a prisoner in the Theresienstadt ghetto. She had been deported the year before. On a pre-printed form supplied by the camp administration, she wrote two sentences to acknowledge a package — a few words that crossed the censors and reached her uncle in Bavaria. Four months later she was put on a transport to Auschwitz.
“Lieber Onkel Karl! Ich bestätige dankend den Empfang Ihres Paketes…”
“Dear Uncle Karl, I gratefully acknowledge receipt of your package…”
Read the full postcard, both sides →Six lives, in summary
A geography of the family
- Gemmingen Baden, Germany ~1700s — early 1900s
- Michelfeld Lower Franconia 1803 onward
- Stuttgart Württemberg early 1900s — 1942
- München Bavaria 1930s — 1942
- Bruchsal Baden 1700s — 1938
- Buchenwald Thuringia 1938 — 1940
- Theresienstadt Bohemia 1942 — 1944
- Auschwitz Upper Silesia 1944
- Dachau Bavaria 1944 — 1945
- Haifa Israel 1939 onward
- New York United States 1940 onward
- Baltimore United States 1940 onward